National Day of Dice - Thoth and His Gamble for More Days

Today is the day dedicated to dice and so I want to talk about the Egyptian god, Thoth, and how he gambled for us to get 5 more days added to the original 360 day calendar.

Thoth is one of the older Egyptian gods and has been involved in many of the stories. Even though Khonsu is regarded as the Egyptian Moon God, he still shares a bit of that honor with Thoth. Way back when Horus, who's right eye is the Earth and left eye is the Moon, had a altercation with Set who put Horus's left eye out. Thoth was the one to fix it and besides, his beak (he's got the head of an ibis) represents a crescent moon, so why not associate him with the moon?

But, anyhoo, let's get back to the story we came here for, Thoth won 1/72th's of the moon light to give us 5 more days every year.

This story, as most, starts with one god kind of being a big jerk. Ra, the Sun God, was a pretty powerful god, as most sun gods are, but he was really nervous about losing this power. So, when Nut, the Sky Goddess, got pregnant by her husband, who happened to also be her brother, Geb* (the Earth God), he decreed she would not be allowed to give birth on any day in the Egyptian 360 day calendar.

Nut, besides herself and probably feeling like she was ready to pop, went to the God of Wisdom, Thoth, to ask for help. She figured he would be able to cleverly come up with a way around Ra's stupid rule.

Thoth went to Khonsu and challenged him to a game (in some accounts it was draughts but for the sake of the day let's go with a game of dice as other accounts tell it) and kept handing the Moon God his butt until Khonsu gave up, letting Thoth walk away with 5 days worth of light.

This allowed Nut to give birth to her 5 children, one on each new day:

Osiris - Lord of the Dead (God of the Underworld)
Horus the Elder - Sky Daddy (the God of the Sky)
Set - Rebel Without a Cause (the God of Chaos)
Isis - Magic Mama (the Goddess of Life and Magic)
Nephthys - Defender of the Dead (the Goddess of Death)

*By the way, Nut and Geb are often depicted naked and are thought to be continually having sex. Must have some great birth control or you'd think there would be many more than 5 kids.

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Pith of the Myth

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